“I am,” the sheriff said, puffing calmly at his cigarette.
Mason seated himself on one corner of his big office desk. Sprague hesitated a moment, then walked across to a chair. Sergeant Holcomb, making no attempt to conceal his disgust, stood by the door leading to the corridor.
Mason said to Sheriff Barnes, “Rather a peculiar situation developed out at Sabin’s house. It seems that Mrs. Sabin and Fremont C. Sabin entered into an agreement by which she was to pretend to take a round-the-world trip, double back by Clipper ship to the coast, go to Reno, establish a residence, and get a divorce, taking pains to avoid any publicity whatsoever. Having done that, she was to receive, in full payment of any claims she might have as the wife of Fremont C. Sabin, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
“She wasn’t in Reno. She was on a boat coming through the Panama Canal, when we located her,” Sprague said. “That Reno business is some sort of a pipe dream.”
“Perhaps it is,” Mason admitted, “but Richard Waid met her in New York on Wednesday the seventh. She gave him a certified copy of a decree of divorce, and he gave her one hundred thousand dollars, and holds her receipt for it. That’s the important business which took him to New York.”
“What are you getting at, Mason?” Sheriff Barnes asked.
“Simply this,” Mason said. “The decree was dated on Tuesday the sixth. If a divorce decree was granted before Sabin was murdered, his widow received one hundred thousand dollars after his death, in accordance with an agreement which had been entered into. But, if Sabin was murdered before the divorce decree was granted, then the divorce decree was invalid, Mrs. Sabin has received one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and is also entitled to take a share of the estate as the surviving widow of the decedent. That’s rather an interesting, and somewhat complicated, legal point, gentlemen.”
Sergeant Holcomb said wearily, “Listen. Helen Monteith married Sabin. She didn’t know he was married. She thought his name was Wallman, but she went up to that cabin with him. We traced those clothes through the laundry mark. They were hers. She’d found out he was married. She figured he’d been taking her for a ride. She made up her mind she was going to call for a showdown. She wanted a gun, and she wanted one right away. She couldn’t get into a store to get a gun, but there was a collection of weapons in the library. She had a key to that collection. She picked out a gun, intending to return it to the collection. Perhaps she only wanted to run a bluff, I don’t know. Perhaps it was self-defense. I don’t know and I don’t care. But she took that gun up to the cabin and killed Fremont C. Sabin.
“She ran to Mason to represent her. He’s found out stuff which he could only have found out after having talked with her. She told her sister she was going to Sabin’s residence and talk with the son. Apparently, she never showed up at the residence. Mason was there. He went out there with his secretary. He comes back alone. Where’s his secretary? Where’s Helen Monteith?
“You start questioning him, and he starts drawing Mrs. Sabin across the trail as a red herring. He’ll get you more red herrings as fast as you fall for them.”